Canalys crowns Champions in the China Digital Cockpit SoC Vendor Leadership Matrix 2024

Canalys has crowned Qualcomm, Intel, Renesas, AMD, SemiDrive, Samsung and SiEngine as Champions in the China Digital Cockpit SoC Vendor Leadership Matrix 2024. 

Canalys recently published its China Digital Cockpit SoC Vendor Leadership Matrix, highlighting the leading digital cockpit chipset vendors in China. Seven vendors – Qualcomm, Intel, Renesas, AMD, SemiDrive, Samsung and SiEngine – stood out from the crowd due to their exceptional performance and contributions to the development of the digital cockpit SoC market and the automotive industry as a whole, earning Champion status to reward their industry-leading efforts. 

Defining Champions and vendor inclusion in the Canalys China Digital Cockpit SoC Vendor Leadership Matrix 

Canalys assesses digital cockpit SoC vendors’ positions in the Leadership Matrix by analyzing feedback from digital cockpit tier-one suppliers and automotive ecosystem partners on collaboration, alongside Canalys analysts’ evaluations of solution and market strategy competitiveness, all backed by performance metrics. Champions have demonstrated the highest level of excellence in driving the development of the digital cockpit industry in China with upstream and downstream partners while ensuring strong business continuity with robust technological roadmaps and upgrade strategies. 

Canalys assessed 16 digital cockpit SoC vendors in the Chinese market. Vendors offering SoCs designed to provide computing capabilities for digital cockpits (featuring interactive displays, OTA capabilities and cellular options) to tier-one suppliers and automakers are considered eligible. Champions are those vendors that show industry-leading performance in technical roadmap planning and execution, supply chain management, operation and service capabilities, while demonstrating strong growth prospects. 

Besides the seven Champions, other vendors are categorized as Contenders (market frontrunners that need to improve competitiveness and/or partner relationships), Scalers (potential rising stars with clear characteristics, such as technology innovation, that partners are looking for) and Foundations (vendors with low partner satisfaction scores and that have shown minimal commitment to driving change and transformation). 

SoC vendors paving the way to shared success in the automotive ecosystem 

The digital cockpit significantly influences consumers’ buying decisions by delivering an intuitive and immersive experience. This pushes automotive OEMs to intensify their focus on cockpit innovation, leading to a more advanced and robust ecosystem in China’s digital cockpit market than in the ADAS segment.  

To stand out in a saturated market, automakers continually improve digital cockpits by introducing innovative user interfaces, integrating various functions and tailoring the in-car experience to different driving scenarios. The introduction of AI technologies has brought multimodal, human-like interactions to the cockpit, serving as a vital strategy to enhance the user experience and boost product value. Since 2024, major automotive players have raced to develop onboard AI models to address the privacy, latency, stability and cost constraints of cloud-based large language models. Meanwhile, rising consumer demand for immersive entertainment experiences has put increased emphasis on SoC vendors’ role in improving AI processing and rendering capabilities.  

Chinese OEMs are lowering prices and offering more value-driven configurations to gain an edge in the competitive landscape. To adapt to the rapidly evolving market, automakers are making increasing demands for SoCs to be highly configurable and capable of supporting rapid product upgrades. Players in the mid-range and high-end vehicle segments seek cost-effectiveness and AI capabilities separately. This trend has exacerbated cost pressures and driven both digital cockpit tier-one suppliers and SoC vendors to enhance their platformization capabilities to reduce engineer development difficulties, leading SoC vendors to align their computing capabilities closer to market demands.  

To optimize resources and enhance the user experience, SoC vendors are partnering with major automakers to develop integrated cockpit and parking systems. These systems aim to fully use the idle computing resources of the cockpit domain controller to enable parking assistance features, creating an opportunity for SoC vendors to refine their software capabilities to address the parking assistance needs of price-sensitive mainstream and entry-level vehicles. Recognizing the significant market potential of new technologies, the top SoC vendors are maintaining a pragmatic approach to short-term demands. As parking features become standard and successful products validate these technologies, integrated digital cockpit parking solutions, and even integrated cockpit driving solutions, will soon become mainstream. 

Congratulations to the two domestic vendors, SemiDrive and SiEngine, which have made outstanding efforts to advance domestic chipset innovation, as well as the five global vendors deeply rooted in the Chinese market – Qualcomm, Intel, Renesas, AMD and Samsung – as they are crowned Champions in the China Digital Cockpit SoC Vendor Leadership Matrix 2024. 

Opportunities for revenue growth in China’s digital cockpit SoC market are becoming increasingly evident due to rising technological demands. Industry partners view China as a key strategic market for driving innovation and system improvements, planning to boost their investments to strengthen their presence and aim for global leadership. To capitalize on these opportunities, digital cockpit SoC vendors need to focus on enhancing collaboration and partner satisfaction for mutual growth. While newcomers aim to expand their partner networks, established players face the challenge of keeping their leading positions over the next year.